[details=Spoiler]A 24-year-old man faces a felony charge after authorities say he threatened to shoot a northwest suburban police officer in a video of freestyle rap posted to Facebook.
Gerard Golston was held in the McHenry County Jail Wednesday on a $35,000 bond on a charge of threatening a public official. Golston, recently of Lake in the Hills, turned himself in Sunday after being accused of threatening a Crystal Lake officer who cited him for a seat belt violation in 2013, according to authorities and court records.
A special Crystal Lake police unit that routinely crawls social media found a post to Golston’s Facebook page from Jan. 6, authorities said. The video appears to show a man driving as he improvises lyrics over a beat thumping from his stereo while a passenger videotapes. He can be heard saying, “(Expletive) Officer Dimitri.” After that, he seems to say, “…know I’m going to get the nine, know I’m going to pop it,” an apparent reference to shooting a pistol. He also calls the officer a “bitch.”
The criminal complaint against Golston identifies the officer as Dimitri Boulahanis, who is also listed on the 2013 seat belt citation written against Golston. Crystal Lake police said in a news release that “other postings and independent investigation indicated Golston may have possession of, or have access to a firearm and threatened violence toward others as well.”
The First Amendment broadly protects people from prosecution for most kinds of speech, but courts have carved out exceptions allowing authorities to charge people who make threats under certain circumstances. Case law holds that such a threat can’t be simply rhetorical; the threat has to be one that a reasonable person would see an expression of intent to inflict harm, constitutional law scholars said.
Scholars noted the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 threw out the conviction of a man who said years earlier at a protest that he would respond to being drafted into the military by shooting the president. The court ruled his statement was not a punishable threat but hyperbole.
“The question is, have you communicated a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual,” said Stuart M. Benjamin, a law professor at Duke University. Benjamin didn’t criticize McHenry County prosecutors for bringing the case but said he suspects Golston’s alleged statement could fall under the constitution’s protection.
Numerous court cases have centered on social media activity authorities have deemed to violate the law, and the Supreme Court is currently considering a case involving threats on Facebook. The justices could soon further clarify the burden prosecutors must meet in proving a defendant’s intent when prosecuting a person for making a threat.
Golston’s family could not be reached for comment.[/details]
Video of the “rap” with the alleged threats.